A version of this column first appeared on Inc.com on April 8, 2026. If I could sit down with the version of me who was selling ads for Radio Disney, an AM music station you couldn't actually hear, building my first company, sleeping on friends' couches,...
A version of this column first appeared on Inc.com on April 7, 2026. It's not easy to talk about this, but I've failed. Many, many times. Not just the big public failures that show up in the press. Small failures. Product failures. Hiring failures. Strategy failures....
A version of this column first appeared on Inc.com on April 2, 2026. Nobody warns you about the loneliness. You start a company, and suddenly you're making decisions that affect people's livelihoods, and you can't talk to any of them about it. You can't dump your...
A version of this column first appeared on Inc.com on April 6, 2026. Everyone talks about work-life balance like it's something you achieve and then maintain. Like you find that perfect equilibrium and then you're set. That's not how it works for founders. Not in the...
Frustrated, annoyed, and nearly ready to give up. That was how I felt as I wandered around during the happy hour at the end of the Founders start-up event. I had attended in part to learn, and I had indeed learned a lot at the sessions...
There I was, sitting by myself at a Barnes and Noble book signing for nearly two hours. For one hour and fifty-four minutes, not a single person approached me to buy a book. To make matters worse, I just had a little spat with my wife and told...
Bold. Unabashed. Audacious. Authentic. I’ve always had people that loved me for who I was, and my fair share of haters along the way. So even though I’d never heard or watched Bethenny Frankel before I sat down on a Zoom call with her, I immediately saw...
Depressed, exhausted, starving, sweaty and anxious. That's how I was feeling as I walked towards a big investor pitch meeting on a muggy day in June of 2013. I had had the WORST day so far - I had woken up early to take a train from...
“ALL IN!” I’ve been playing the great game of poker on and off for the last 35 years. Poker is a game of skill and luck–it requires strategy, patience, and calculated risk. In many ways, business and entrepreneurship are the same. Every week when I play...
11 Principles for Public Leadership that Actually Listens, Learns, and Leads with Heart Over a decade ago, I wrote a little LinkedIn article called “11 Simple Concepts to Become a Better Leader.” It was inspired by my time in business — learning (often the hard way)...